21 Years Later: 2Pac’s Legacy Continue

“Five shots and they couldn’t kill me,” he boasted in one song after recovering from the 1994 shooting. Then last year, in a song called “If I Die 2Nite,” he wondered whether “heaven got a ghetto for thug niggaz” and added with flip fatalism: “Don’t shed a tear for me, nigga. I ain’t happy here.”

Tupac, who survived being shot five times in a 1994 robbery, had courted and defied death in a series of violent confrontations. His bitter, explosive and often cruel music shocked critics but struck home to a generation of rap fans already hardened by life.

Tupac had been in critical condition since being shot four times last Saturday in Las Vegas by a man who pulled up beside his BMW in a white Cadillac and opened fire. The rapper was driving with friends to a nightclub after watching the world heavyweight title fight between Mike Tyson and Bruce Seldon.

On Friday the 13th, doctors tried to resuscitate Tupac several times, then Afeni said not to try again. When Tupac took his last breath Tupac’s aunt Gloria Jean praised his body and could bear witness to who it was. He died at 4:03 PM at the Intensive Care Unit. He was pronounced dead by Dr. Lovett of respiratory failure and cardiopulmonary arrest.